After negotiations that stretched from the UK, to the Netherlands and beyond two paintings stolen by masked gunmen during a daylight robbery have been recovered thanks to the work of private investigators.

Snatched from the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art, once located in the village of Spanbroek in northwest Holland on May 01, 2009, the robbers made off with “Adolescence,” 18 x 12 inches (45 by 30 centimeters), a 1941 gouache by Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí featuring the Catalan artist and his one-time nanny and “La Musicienne,” 46 x 29 inches (116 by 73 centimeters), a 1929 oil painting by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka.

In 2009 the museum closed; a direct result of the collapse of the Dutch DSB Bank owned by the Museum's founder and owner, Dirk Scheringa. Forced into liquidation by its creditors, Dutch bank ABN Amro, whose removal men can be seen in the video below, seized 130 paintings from the museum's collection, reportedly to cover a $48 million loan that the museum’s namesake owner had failed to repay. The sale of the museum's collection, both stolen and on site achieved € 2,880,075.

In a post published on Twitter Dutch art historian Arthur Brand released a statement saying

Brand further reported that the two artworks had been given to a criminal gang as collateral, in lieu of payment.

Dali’s surrealist landscape painting depicts a woman’s lips and nose superimposed onto the back of a seated woman, her eyes and eyelashes are formed by two hills in the background. The Lempicka artwork shows a bohemian woman in a vivid blue dress, playing a mandolin against the backdrop of a cityscape.

After an intense months-long negotiation, the two paintings have now been handed over to UK police at New Scotland Yard. The current owners, who purchased the art as a result of the museum's sale, have yet to be identified publically.

This week, in the town of Teano, 30 kilometres northwest of Caserta on the road to Rome from Naples, the Carabinieri formally placed under investigation four individuals under suspicion of having committed a series of thefts “of historical interest” and then selling their stash onward via the illegal market. In layman's English, the men were arrested for trafficking illicit antiquities and laundering them on via middlemen on to wealthy buyers. The archaeological areas of Teano-Calvi have long been massacred for decades by tomb raiders without scruples.

One of those arrested was Emilio Autieri, a 65 year old registered nurse with Italy's Local Health Authority Service (Azienda Sanitaria Locale, ASL) which proves that even with a decent state pension, individuals can be coaxed into a world of illicit crime where money flows freely and behind closed doors. He and 22 year old Antonia Pane have been placed under house arrest pending further investigation. Massimo Aversano, 43 and 19 year old Domenico De Biasio have been released on their own recognizance with reporting conditions and restrictions to not leave the territorial area.

The investigation began in January 2016 following a not-publicized theft from the Archaeological Museum of Teano. The case serves as a good example into the minds of criminals who receive, possess, conceal, store, barter, and sell, not just antiquity, but any goods, wares, or merchandise where there is a willing buyer willing to look the other way.

Following months of observation and chasing leads on various burglaries at private residences and shops, the Teano carabinieri conducted a series of wire taps and reviewed CCTV footage related to various burglaries. This in turn lead them to execute search warrants which uncovered what appears to be a well structured group of organized criminals who moved objects via fences working in the archaeological sector who had a supply of buyers willing to turn a blind eye to the illicit origin of the pieces they purchased.

During the July sting operation, authorities recovered and sequestered more than 200 historical objects; antiquities which initial examination appears to date from from as early as the 9th and 8th Century BCE to as late as the 1st and 2nd century CE. Law enforcement has estimated the value of the seizure to have a combined value of €500,000.00 on the illicit market.

The objects brought into police custody include various sculptures in terracotta, ivory carvings, marble architectural elements, terracotta amphorae, as well as Bucchero pottery, common in pre-Roman Italy. The team also had a stash of votive statues, and various metal and stone objects, buckles, brooches and earrings. Interestingly, authorities also seized stolen objects not of an archaeological nature. This shows that the ring of thieves and fences, did not restrict their dealings to stolen goods solely from antiquity.

In January 2014 an ex capo and former Camorrista of the Casalesi clan turned justice informant, Carmine Schiavone, stated that the Camorra had infiltrated the cities of Teano, Vairano, Caianello and other areas in Alto Caserta. Schiavone, prior to his death was a former member of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno and a cousin of former Camorra superboss Francesco Schiavone. Heavily entrenched in the clan's business, he could be considered a person well informed as to the illicit activities in the region.

Is this summer's heritage crime case localized to one small group of organized bandits or part of something more sinister?

I’m not sure whether it makes more sense to say that we’re only halfway through with the ARCA postgraduate program or that we’re already halfway through with the program. On the one hand, we have had the good fortune of hearing from six expert professors and have covered all sorts of ground—academic and professional terrain alike—in the study of art crime: from heritage law to art insurance, from art policing to forgery, and from museum security to war crimes. We’ve practically memorized most of the UNESCO conventions at this point, we’re capable of sketching out the infamous Medici trafficking organigram at the blow of a whistle, and we’re all pretty used to having revenge-fantasy dreams about prosecuting certain museums with less-than acceptable collection ethics and repatriating all of their loot.

On the other hand, however, it feels like we’ve only just arrived in Amelia and that there’s still a whole lot more for us to learn in the coming weeks about cultural heritage protection. We’ve yet to encounter the international art market or art criminology head-on, and we’re not quite sure whether we believe the Spanish or the British are more entitled to Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. Moreover, we still don’t know how we would actually steal the Ghent Altarpiece or Munch’s The Scream and this makes me wonder: can anyone really fashion him or herself an art crime expert without knowing how to pull off a major museum heist? It’s probably a good thing that we’re only halfway done with the ARCA program, but I’ll share with you what we’ve covered in the courses so far since we are, after all, already halfway finished with the program.

Following Duncan Chappell’s course our studies shifted from the subject of art law to its not-too-distant relative, art insurance. Dorit Straus, art insurance veteran and board member at AXA Art, served as the instructor for this course. Straus has had a lengthy and exciting career with all sorts of cinematic turns and climaxes. Its major plot twist: Straus began her career studying Near Eastern Archaeology and only later in life migrated into the world of art insurance. For those of us trained in the humanities—which is to say, with little to no background in the fine arts market—Straus guaranteed a convenient point of entry into the study of art insurance. Pairing her formal explanations with fascinating anecdotes, Straus shaped and colored the art insurance industry with remarkable and stunning mastery. By the end of the week Straus had students map out the entire process of acquiring art insurance coverage in role-play exercises—a form of evaluation that was, I am sure, most entertaining for Dorit herself.

We then heard from Richard Ellis, founder of Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Squad, who covered lessons on the dark, seedy underbelly that is the black market. Ellis did a solid job explaining the ins and outs of INTERPOL and clarified the issues that police forces deal with in an event of art theft—issues that are quite distinct from the ones that insurers, collectors, or museums address. One of the recurring lessons that Ellis repeated over and over again was the importance of knowing one’s enemy. Understanding the motives that animate an episode of art crime, Ellis stressed, is always integral to the investigation process. At the conclusion of his course Ellis held a charming cocktail gathering that was, I would hold, much needed after a tense week studying some pretty serious material.

ARCA founder Noah Charney took the reigns for our next course on forgery. Charney launched his weeklong course with an art history lesson in which students were asked to perform visual analysis on a set of Caravaggio paintings. This exercise offered an exciting opportunity for students to truly interface with the very objects that had been broached in previous courses but perhaps not formally or materially addressed. It was a delight to work through Caravaggio’s endlessly fascinating visual puzzles, and Charney’s thorough guidance and insightful explanations proved to be especially useful in our brief art historical investigation. The rest of the week was spent differentiating (conceptually) fakes from forgeries, discussing the psychological profile of art forgers, and reviewing some of the major historical cases that constitute Charney’s sector of the art crime world. With Charney still in town, ARCA held its annual interdisciplinary conference—an exciting three days of panel discussions that another student, Cate Waldram, will be posting on in greater detail.

After a weekend of conference talks and cocktail parties ARCA students met with security pundit Dick Drent. Following 25 years in law enforcement, Drent joined the staff at Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands and continues to provide security advising through his consulting group, Omnirisk. Though Drent’s energy and countenance might feel as formidable and high-stakes as his work, the Dutch professor’s instruction was often light and playful—much like the goofy videos he would screen at the beginning of class too lighten the mood, especially since his course covers everything from everyday threats to Active Shooter incidents.

At the end of Drent’s class students carried out a security audit at a museum. In this exercise students set out to observe surveillance cameras, security guards, museum layouts, fire prevention strategies, smoke detectors, alarm systems, and so on. The exercise gave ARCA students a unique opportunity to spend a day at a museum not admiring precious artworks but instead observing the very security systems that attempt to protect these objects.

At the conclusion of Drent’s course students delved headfirst into “Art Crime During War” with Judge Arthur Tompkins. Tompkins’ hefty lesson plans and near-impeccable knowledge of world history made for an information-rich crash course in our study of art crime during conflict. At the outset of his first lesson Tompkins traced the origins of art crime all the way back to the ancient world.

The looting of what might be anachronistically termed “cultural property” often went part and parcel with military combat and imperial campaigns in the ancient world—thus giving birth to the lengthy history of what we now study as art crime. Tompkins then traversed the entire chronology of war—passing through the Middle Ages and early modernity until reaching the late twentieth century—and identified the various renditions of art crime that have plagued nation-states and peoples during times of conflict. By the end of the course students were asked to submit a paper detailing one particular episode of art crime that took place in the midst of combat. Students wrote about everything from plunders during antiquity to more recent art theft in the Middle East to the destruction of libraries in the American Civil War.

So there you have it! We have covered vast terrain in the world art crime and are already halfway experts in the field. I’ll get back to you with more storytelling and info when we’re only a few short steps away from calling ourselves full-on, to-the-core certificate-ready professionals!

By: Christopher Falcone

July 14, 2016

In history as today, vandalism is an act imbued with meaning and the gap between how heritage professionals react to deliberate damage of artworks and the perceptions of the agents of these changes and the groups they represent presents interesting food for thought.

On June 13, 2016 a cafeteria worker, Corey Menafee, took a broomstick and smashed a historic stained glass window depicting two slaves picking cotton at Yale University's Calhoun College residence hall. Confessing to the crime, he was arrested shortly thereafter.

Existing US criminal law does not distinguish art vandalism from vandalism in general and typically classifies the deliberate destruction of artwork under the general category of criminal mischief. In Connecticut the offence falls under the state’s General Statutes § 53a-115a. This law addresses persons who acted "with intent to cause damage to tangible property of another and having no reasonable ground to believe that such person has a right to do so, such person damages tangible property of another in an amount exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars."

As a result of his actions, Menafee was charged with first-degree criminal mischief, which is a felony, as well as second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. For his actions, under Connecticut law, Manafee faces up to five years in prison on the felony charge and up to two years of incarceration on the misdemeanor offense.

Menafee apologised for his actions and subsequently resigned.

The residence hall's namesake, John C. Calhoun, is significant in that he was a well known 19th century American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who served as Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Calhoun was an outspoken supporter of slavery as well as an 1804 graduate of Yale University. For years students concerned staffers alike have advocated against the name and imagery of the building, saying that it takes a heavy toll on all persons of color who live and work within the historic building.

But despite the illegality of his actions, students, alumni and members of the New Haven community chose instead to rally around Menafee. Taking to social media, they voiced their support for his actions and created a petition calling for all charges to be dropped. Other supporters established a GoFundMe account, set up to help him raise money for his defence.

Based on the sensativity of the issue, Yale University released a statement that it would not advocate for Menafee to be prosecuted and would not seek restitution for the loss of the stained glass artwork.

“After the window was broken in June, the Committee recommended that it and some other windows be removed from Calhoun, conserved for future study and a possible contextual exhibition, and replaced temporarily with tinted glass. An artist specializing in stained glass will be commissioned to design new windows, with input from the Yale community, including students, on what should replace them.”

Acts of violence against art such as these explore and challenge society’s ideas of what constitutes “civil disobedience” or “vandalism”. It also exemplifies why we occasionally deem some crimes against art, such as the deliberate damage to symbolical art which records painful pasts, as acceptable, while other destruction is opposed as negative.

In today’s conflict-filled world, where war is no longer about conquering territory but about changing the perceptions of those under your control ancient statues and historic sites are mutilated or smashed because they are seen as pagan idols. In the past, deliberate attacks against statues depicting Saddam, Stalin and Lenin underscored the end of dictatorial regimes. Each of these examples show how society's interpretation the destruction of art can be a political symbol, and as such, as a weapon for change. Each shows that art vandalism can be interpreted as positive or negative depending on the eyes of the beholder.

The broken window at Yale reminds us that context authorship and intention of the vandal often play an important role in how society perceives, interprets, accepts, rejects or adjudicates an criminal act deeming one as backward, another as revolutionary, or in the case of Yale's stained class, perhaps a wrong that long since needs to be righted. It probes the concept of when art destruction is acceptable and when it isn't and forces us to rethink the ways that we interact with art and react to its power to shock or subdue.

By Lynda Albertson

July 13, 2016

The Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums (DGAM)in Syria has issued a report with images showing recent damage to the structural integrity of the National Museum of Aleppo. One of the images shows what appears to be a an improvised artillery device made from a propane cylinder.

Known as a "hell cannon" these improvised explosives carry a range of approximately 1 mile/ 1.6 km depending on the payload it is firing and have been used by opposition forces during the Syrian conflict.

The Mari display section at the National Museum of
Aleppo after the October 2012 car bombs exploded
in Aleppo city centre

July 7, 2016

ISIS has released a new "heritage snuff" video that shows its destruction of the Palmyra Museum's Palmyrene funerary portraiture as well as desecration of the museum's mummies which DGAM personnel had stored in a protective bricked-sealed enclosure at the museum prior to ISIS overtaking the city in May 2015.

The 57 second video shows militants lifting funerary reliefs from shelving and dropping them forcefully onto the floor. Other historic artifacts are subjected to repeated blows with sledgehammers, filmed for cinematic effect.

More disturbing however is the footage of the desecration of human remains that had once been stored on exhibit within the museum. Lined up on a sandy street in Tadmur, the mummies were crushed with what appears to be a heavy military vehicle.

On display at the Palmyra museum since August 4, 2005 thanks to a Japanese grant and the efforts of archaeologists from Italy and France who helped extract them, the mummies of two men and two women were originally found wrapped in many layers of cloth in the Palmyra valley. Well preserved, they provided a fascinating glimpse of the area's funerary practices during the first and second century C.E. Given their age, they were considered to be a cultural and biological patrimony of inestimable value for the Syrian city.

Italian archaeologist Professor Paulo Matthiae once compared the find of the mummies to those found in Egypt. In a book on the ancient Syrian city of Ebla, Matthiae states

"The valley of the tombs of Palmyra is one of the most wonderful places of the region of antiquities in the Graeco-Roman world like the most famous tomb valleys in Egypt."

ISIS considers worshipping or mourning at grave sites to be equal to idolatry and have often destroyed burial sites throughout areas under their control.

Like the world's ambassadors who serve as official envoys, promoting good relations between countries, cooperation between archaeologists, state attorneys, cultural ministries and museums, in furtherance of the return of plundered antiquities, sometimes serve as strange bedfellows in strengthening reciprocal relationships through acts of of cultural diplomacy.

Over the last eight years the Italian government has successfully brokered repatriations with American museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and the Cleveland Museum for the return of looted antiquities. But up until yesterday, finding a way to achieve the same results with the internationally acclaimed Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum in Denmark's capital of Copenhagen, had proven anything but fruitful.

At the heart of the Italian's case, started in 2008, is a calesse, an ornate parade wagon and other funerary objects that date back to the early seventh century B.C.E., The funerary objects, long on display at the Glyptotek, came from the looted tomb of a Sabine prince, laid to rest within the Colle del Forno necropolis.

The Glyptotek purchased the funerary objects in 1970 via Swiss dealer, Robert Hecht, just before the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property entered into force. As can be seen from the letter between the museum's then management and the tainted dealer, its easy to see that those who agreed to the antiquities' purchase had more than a vague idea of the illicit nature of the material being purchased during the transaction.

A letter from Robert E. Hecht to former Glyptotek director Mogens Gjødesen
dated 1970. In the letter, Hecht speaks in code using the word 'children' to
describe the archaeological finds from the prince's tomb he plans
to send to Copenhagen.

In 1970 Hecht worked closely with Giacomo Medici, the now well known Italian antiquities smuggler and art dealer who was convicted in 2004 of dealing in stolen ancient artifacts. Medici and Hecht laundered Italian cultural property through museums all over the world.

Glyptotek ledger from the late 1970s
show deals with Giacomo Medici
and Robert E. Hecht.

But after protracted negotiations, some civil, some bitter, the objects that make up the princely tomb from Sabina will now be returned to Italy starting in December of this year and concluding by the end of 2017. In exchange, the Italian authorities have agreed to provide the Copenhagen museum with long term loans "of significant tomb discoveries from Italy which on a continuous, rotating basis will be featured in the Glyptotek’s forthcoming, large-scale, new exhibition of the whole museum’s collection of antiquities."

The complete joint statement of the agreement between the Italian Authorities and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek can be read in English hereand in Italianhere.

The first loaned objects will arrive in Copenhagen in November 2018. The grouping will be composed of artifacts from the ’Tomb of the silver hands' from the Vulci Museum as well as additional votive objects from the necropolis of Capena, Crustumerium and Fidene.

At the time of the announcement, ARCA spoke with Stefano Alessandrini, a consultant to Italy’s public prosecutor’s office who has been working intensively on this case and other Medici and Hecht identification and repatriation cases throughout his career. Overjoyed with the accord, he said "finally, after years of work, negotiations, disappointments and hopes rekindled, a great success has been accomplished in the name of Italy's ‘cultural diplomacy.’ I am proud to have been part of this team".

Alessandrini went on to add that after eight years of sometimes stormy negotiations, the cities of Sabina, Cerveteri and Pyrgi can now, at last rejoice. Speaking of the difficulty in finding an accord that satisfied all sides, Alessandrini praised the work of Italy's antiquities prosecutor, Maurizio Fiorilli, Jeanette Papadopoulos of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism and State Prosecutor Lorenzo D’Ascia for their work during the mediation process with the Copenhagen museum.

Alessandrini also praised the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale who, under General Conforti, uncovered the extent of the Medici - Hecht network which ultimately led Italy to successfully bringing these objects home.

But even as the Glyptotek has agreed to return the funerary artifacts from the tomb at Colle del Forno, the calesse remains woefully incomplete.

Paolo Santoro, the archaeologist who led the original licit excavations at Colle del Forno in the 1970s reminds the world,

Ahead of Christie’s London July 6th sale, an Attic Black-figured Neck-Amphora, attributed to the Bucci painter, has been withdrawn from the firm's antiquities auction after forensic archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis notified ARCA, trafficking scholars and the requisite police authorities (DS Hutcheon, Head of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Unit, the Greek police Art Squad, and INTERPOL) of a positive match.

An overview of several of the cases of looted antiquities that have been repatriated to Italy involving the Tchakos network have been discussed in the Medici Conspiracy (e.g. Watson & Todeschini 2007:194-195, 227) and in “From Boston to Rome: Reflections on Returning Antiquities”, International Journal of Cultural Property 13. As part of a deal between Tchacos and the Italian authorities, Frieda Tchacos was given a light sentence.

Given the brother's familial ties to the former operator of Galerie Nefer, known to have handled tainted illicit antiquities from Greece and Italy and for its having been associated with names like Robert Hecht, Gianfranco Becchina, Robin Symes, Christo Michaelidis and Raffaele Monticelli, the photographs provided investigators with evidentiary support that there were additional, potentially-laundered ancient artifacts already in circulation elsewhere within the world's thriving antiquities art market.

Forensic Image II

Two of the images seized during the raid and provided to ARCA by Dr. Tsirogiannis depict an Attic Black-figured Neck-Amphora, a lidded vessel used for the storing wine and other commodities. Forensic Image I, pictured in the blog post above, is likely a professional dealer's inventory photo. It has been shot on an aesthetically pleasing neutral background in order to clearly emphsaize the side of the amphora which depicts a bearded warrior and his facing attendant.

The second photograph, Forensic Image II, has been cropped for confidentiality, but shows the forehead of one of the two brother's who owned the property connected to the Karavomylos raid. In the background, the same Attic Black-figured Neck-Amphora, is pictured sitting high on a white display shelf behind the man's head.

Fast Forward to 2016

Tsirogiannis has notified ARCA and the requisite police authorities (DS Hutcheon, Head of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Unit, the Greek police Art Squad, and Interpol) that he has made a positive match of the photographed amphora to Lot 52 in the forthcoming antiquities auction by Christie's London office. The amphora is scheduled to come up for bidding on July 6, 2016.

The Auction houses website describes the object as being an "Attic Black-figured Neck-Amphora attributed to the Bucci painter, Circa 540-530 B.C." and gives a detailed description of the vase's imagery and dimensions along with an extremely modest suggested sale price for a vase of this age.

Shouldn't the galleries and collectors which likely held the work on consignment be listed?

Does the current vase's owner have potential liability if the provenance provided to the auction house or to the future buyer turns out to show that key passages in the vase's history were omitted by someone connected to the sales process?

The collection history (sometimes referred to as provenance) of an object is an important factor in determining its authenticity, but equally important, as is the case with antiquities, it is an important indicator of the licit or illicit nature of the object's discovery and acquisition.

Conscientious and ethical antiquities collectors should be able to rely on the information provided by sellers. But as this auction clearly demonstrates, an object's reported collection history doesn't always accurately reflect whose hands an antiquity has past through.

When details of an objects past are omitted, by an owner, by an antiquities dealer or by an auction house, either intentionally or accidentally, we continue to churn trafficked antiquities through the legitimate marketplace allowing collectors to buy and sell pretty things, conveniently claiming ignorance and clinging to the negligent “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach of the past.